As many people have learned during the course of the ongoing recession, the internet has provided a wealth of alternative employment opportunities. Those suffering from job loss may have had to give up the traditional nine-to-five, but some have discovered the abundance of freelance work available online, not to mention the joys of working from home and being one’s own boss. While the security of full-time employment with benefits is still alluring, there are likely to be some who never go back to the corporate lifestyle, even if the opportunity should arise, thanks to the freedom, flexibility, and overall fulfillment that can be attained through self-employment. And it seems that Apple is now taking credit for their role in changing the face of the workforce. According to the preeminent technology company, the “app economy” they’ve created through their mobile devices and the iTunes store has led to the creation of an estimated 600,000 jobs in the U.S. alone.

When Apple’s App Store first launched back in 2008, it wasn’t the first of its type. In truth, this is typical of Apple’s operational mentality. They also weren’t the first to launch the MP3 player, although most people would be hard pressed to list a model that came out before the iPod. What Apple has excelled at, and what has made them so successful over the last decade or so, is finding technology that is undervalued, perfecting it, and then convincing consumers that they need it. So while the iTunes store followed in the footsteps of Palm and Windows Mobile, it still managed to become the most popular option on the market. And this is perhaps why the iPhone and the iTunes store have come to be widely credited for what pundits have coined as the app economy.

This is a rather broad term that covers more than just jobs. The so-called app economy denotes a trend by which media that was formerly distributed by hard copy suddenly became available virtually thanks to online stores that allowed for the instant download of virtual files. No more driving to the store and waiting in line for the latest CD; iTunes made it possible for consumers to download content the moment it was released, from the comfort of home, with little more than a few clicks of a mouse. And this not only revolutionized the way media was published and purveyed, but it also created a slew of new jobs as developers began to see the potential for providing applications that consumers could access from anywhere.

According to Apple, this innovation has been the basis of 600,000 new jobs in the U.S. since the 2008 iTunes launch, including not only jobs within the company, but also for people who have decided to purchase the $99/year iOS developer license and begin posting their applications for sale via Apple’s online store. Of course, just because Apple provided the platform doesn’t necessarily mean they can claim credit for job creation. Even in this era of “click here” speed and efficiency, app developers would probably argue that providing a portal for sales is only a small part of the process of creating and selling mobile applications. And yet, there is a kernel of truth to what they say. But tooting their own horn in this matter, taking full credit for something that they really only played a small part in, is not terribly becoming. And their claim that they’ve created jobs when in truth people have created their own opportunities using the Apple platform, borders on the insulting, even if the company was the catalyst for the current app economy.